Everton’s successor to Idrissa Gueye, JP Gbamin, has been compared to a former Manchester City legend.
Gbamin was signed in the final weeks of the transfer window for a fee of around £22.5million following Gana’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain, with the midfielder expected to fill the role left behind by the Senegal international.
However, according to Get German Football News’ editor-in-chief Daniel Pinder, an expert on Bundesliga football, Everton won’t be getting the same type of player as Gana in their signing of Gbamin.
Gbamin underwhelmed many fans on his debut, but there was a reason behind his slightly stale performance. The Ivory Coast international has not had much of pre-season at all since spending the summer away at the African Cup of Nations’, and hadn’t trained much with Everton’s squad before the Palace game.
When he reaches full fitness and settles in the Premier League, Pinder expects Everton fans to see Gbamin’s true ability, a midfielder who is more reminiscent of Yaya Toure that a holding enforcer.
Talking about Gbamin’s attributes, Pinder told the Liverpool Echo:
Gbamin is extremely athletic, possessing great energy while his tackling is up there amongst the best. He’ll always give everything and the comparisons to Yaya Toure aren’t far off.
Statistically he was one of the Bundesliga’s best midfielders in the league last season and to stand out in a Mainz side rightfully attracted interest from Europe’s biggest clubs.
Gbamin is ready to play in any position he’s asked and his ability to play in defence has helped him understand the game a lot better, especially in a positional sense while his ability to read the game has improved.
In today’s market, Jean-Philippe Gbamin at £25m is a steal.
As well as drawing comparisons to the former Barcelona midfielder, Pinder also explained that while Gana and Gbamin do share some similarities, they are largely different players. He continued:
I did some research when Gbamin was linked as Idrissa Gueye’s replacement and I do think Everton are getting a different player, although there are a few similarities.
Gueye did have the better passing completion but I think this is difficult to read into given that Mainz played very direct football last season and so Gbamin was forced to play a lot of risky passes, while Everton have players technically better than those that Gbamin had at Mainz.
So I do think we’re going to see a different Gbamin in the Premier League. At Mainz, he was the player that had to do everything and if he didn’t perform, the chances are the team wouldn’t.
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It’s fascinating to read the interview with Pinder about Gbamin and his strengths and weaknesses, and I’m interested to see Gbamin put his ability into action once he is up to speed.
He has been described by other fans of German football as “Yaya Toure but quicker”, and while I can’t see it personally, there must be credence to the conversation after several experts have claimed as such or supported those claims.
As great as Gana was at breaking up play and keeping Everton’s play ticking over, it will be interesting to see how a more dominant and powerful midfielder does a similar job in Silva’s current system.
